Like Dying
by Elisabeta
Summary: *pre-slash* How Neo felt with Smith inside him. Double entendre completely intentional ;)
1. Default Chapter

Title: Like Dying Author: Elisabeta Rating: Probably PG but I'm saying PG-13 to be on the safe side. Disclaimer: Not mine; don't sue. All you'll get is a collection of my trashy fanfic and a much-saddened fangirl anyway. Summary: How Neo felt with Smith inside him. Double entendre completely intentional ;)  
  
*** His heart throbbed - once, hard - and then froze dead in his chest. His breath caught and his muscles seized. A shiver ran down his spine.  
  
It was like dying. It was just like dying.  
  
Smith's dark, angled glasses reflected back to Neo exactly what was happening; he saw two perfect images of himself as he stood there stricken on the stone slabs. Smith's hand was inside him and he felt it there, sharp like a knife or a bullet. He saw his own hands at Smith's wrist and felt that too. It felt human. He felt a heartbeat. The feeling was deceptive.  
  
There was no pain and that surprised him. He watched the dull metallic waves wash over him and felt it should hurt but it didn't. He felt it should freeze, burn white ice-hot against his skin, but it didn't. It was warm. It rippled through him like hot blood, like liquid light. It was like dying.  
  
He glanced down and saw it on him; he knew he should be scared. He looked up and for an instant his reflection wore a suit and tie. Smith was in him.  
  
"Yes, that's it, it'll be over soon".  
  
Only when he fought did it start to hurt, like needles through his bones. He almost expected to see himself pierced and red and bloody but his coat still lay perfect and black against his chest. Then it did burn, molten in his blood. Smith's hatred burned. There was fervour in his code now, caught like hooks inside Neo that he had to tear away. The shock, the absolute horror, on Smith's face as he did it, almost made all that pain worthwhile.  
  
They fought; he hurt; he fled. What remained of the light trickled out of him, left him tingling as the jack was pulled from his neck. He didn't die. He wasn't dead.  
  
He breathed hard and he told the others it was like dying, and it was. It felt like touching oblivion, like staring into the void and being blinded by the glare. He didn't tell them that. He looked down and he rubbed at the place where it had happened, where they'd connected. Trinity kissed him. When she pulled back he hadn't got the heart to tell her he could almost feel Smith still inside him.  
  
It wasn't until later, lying awake and cold in bed with her asleep in his arms that he realised. Smith inside him felt like dying. He still felt it. But the part that made his blood run cold was that part of him embraced it. 


	2. 2

.and Smith's POV.  
  
***  
  
The many Smiths dispersed. They left the scene and scattered like so many crows. A hundred Smiths left that place numb, with aching purpose. The crows had a program that governed them, and in a way so had the Smiths. They had need. They had direction. They had purpose.  
  
They walked away and in the end only one remained. It didn't matter which because they were all the same, but this Smith was the first. He knew he was the first, the original, but that didn't matter. There were so many of him and he felt them all, heard them, *was* them. In a way he'd become what he'd despised the most, like a virus, spreading through the Matrix indiscriminate, with cold determination. That mattered little to him now.  
  
Not when he'd come so close. Five more seconds. So close.  
  
In that instant, standing there with Anderson, he'd felt cold. He'd felt cold as if he were feeling it for the first time, when clearly this was not the case. As it was with all Agents, he had been programmed to feel, to better understand the human inhabitants of the Matrix, to boost his efficiency. But this was a different kind of cold.  
  
Like deletion. Like dying. For Smith, knuckle-deep in Anderson's chest, in Anderson's code, that was exactly how it felt. It was like dying.  
  
It was a feeling for which he had no explanation. Logically - and Smith's existence was pure logic - the moment should have been fulfilment; fulfilment of aspiration, fulfilment of his function, and by extension, his very programming. He saw the virus spread, he saw himself copied and pasted onto a new frame. He felt it happen, the emergence of a new Smith in Anderson. He saw himself reflected in Anderson's sunglasses. He should have felt pride. All he felt was cold.  
  
And then Anderson fought back.  
  
The new Smith was wiped out. Paste unsuccessful. Transfer incomplete. Anderson yanked Smith's hand from his chest and with a scrape of nails over the back of his wrist they were parted. Smith felt suddenly whole again, and at the same time strangely incomplete.  
  
And then they fought. This was what he had been programmed for, his reason for existence - policing the Matrix had been his function, assuring its continued well-being. In a way, this fight was indicative of his function still; the only difference was that now, his function was centralised. Around Thomas Anderson.  
  
The intimacy of the conflict was breathtaking. Smith saw Anderson from every angle, felt him in his code and touched him physically, with his many hands. It was a strange sensation, to feel cold stone paving slabs with one pair of hands, air with another and the soft human flesh of Anderson's body with another still.  
  
Only this Anderson was not so human. He moved differently. He reacted differently. There was no smell, that pungent, cloying, *human* smell that he'd come to detest. The change in him was exciting. It spurred him on.  
  
"It is inevitable".  
  
A curious, unanticipated fountain of Smiths and Anderson was gone. The validity of this eventual 'loss' was debatable; Anderson quite literally took flight before they could come to a final conclusion. There was no disappointment; Smith knew that they would meet again. He saw no further than their next meeting. He did not need to. Whether it ended with their next meeting or no, they would always meet again. It was inevitable. He felt it, as he felt Anderson. They were part of each other.  
  
And soon there would be no Anderson. There would be only Smith. With that thought, the coldness returned.  
  
It was like dying. He knew; essentially he had died, and Anderson had killed him. But there he was. Jones and Brown had heard the call of the Source and they obeyed. Smith, however, had not. He'd been compelled to do otherwise. Anderson had overwritten his reason. He'd heard the call. Then he'd turned and walked away.  
  
It was confusing at first, but only at first. Without the system, what was he? Then he'd remembered Anderson. But without Anderson? Maybe death was only lack of purpose. Perhaps with his purpose fulfilled, he would be nothing. Perhaps.  
  
He straightened his cuffs and smoothed back his hair. Smith had hair that never grew, skin that didn't sweat. He had muscles that never cramped, that never required that he stop to rest. He breathed but had no need to. He had a pulse; it never rose and it never fell. He touched his fingers to his wrist and felt the steady beat beneath his skin. It was reassuring.  
  
But in its turn, this chilled him. Staring into the sky, at a black speck so small against the white of the clouds that its insignificance made him sigh out long and loud, Smith knew. Aware of the inevitable, he should not have required reassurance.  
  
*** End *** 


End file.
